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"This sketch is intended principally as a pen-picture of Sac
County as it now is, and will include a short outline of its history
and a few incidents of the life of the early settlers.
"The early settlers of Sac, though they had the
advantage of being able to try fruit raising under the protection of
a considerable belt of timber, had small faith in the county as
adapted to the growth of fruits. Consequently it was not until some
ten or twelve years after the settlement of the county began that
any attention was given to this important branch of the industries
of the county. When proper attention was given to the matter, it was
speedily demonstrated that Sac County was well fitted for fruit
growing, and there are now many orchards, vineyards and fruit garden
dotting the fair surface of Sac-shire. Apples, grapes, plums,
cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants,
gooseberries, etc., grow rapidly and yield surely and abundantly,
and the quality is unsurpassed anywhere. We are informed that pears
are also successfully grown in parts of the county. In the line of
vegetables there is nothing usually grown in a temperate climate
which will not grow here and that in extraordinary perfection. This
section is the garden of Iowa, as Iowa is the Garden State of the
Union. The dry, pure air of our unexcelled climate gives to trees
and plants a healthy growth, and the fruits and vegetables are solid
and delicately flavored and tinted, as far excelling the coarse
flavor and blowzy coloring given to the same fruits by the hot an d
humid air of California and Oregon as the apple excels the pumpkin.
You say the California fruit is larger than ours! Oh, well, the
pumpkin is larger than the apple; but the pumpkin requires a good
deal of cooking and spicing before it is eatable, and if you get a
California apple you had better use that for cooking also. But our
northern Iowa apples are of the medium size, of the finest flavor
and will keep longer than any apple grown in a warm climate.
Therefore the Iowa apple is in the near future the apple of commerce
and it is not unlikely that the principal future industry of Iowa,
may be fruit-growing Apples are met not the only fruit which the
Iowa soil and climate give a finer flavor than elsewhere. Nowhere
does the Concord grape come to such perfection as in Iowa. And
although our fruits and vegetables do not rival those of the Pacific
coast in size, they are unsurpassed even in that minor particular by
those of any other, section in the Mississippi Valley or any section
on the Atlantic slope.
The population of this county by the census of
1880 was 9,300, but it is now estimated at over 11,000. This
increase is partially due to a narrow gauge railway (a branch of the
Wabash) which is in process of construction, and which will run
across the county, passing through Sac City, thus giving additional
shipping and traveling facilities to the people of the county. Depot
grounds for the road have been laid out near the court house in the
city named.
As stated
elsewhere a complete list of the county officers from date of the
organization of the county to present date is not obtainable, but the
following are the present officers: Treasurer: Philip Schaller; Auditor,
A.D. Peck; Sheriff, H. L. Willson; Clerk of Courts, Chas. E. Lane;
Recorder, N.D. Flack; Superintendent of Schools, H. T. Martin; Surveyor,
Chas. Pettis; Supervisors, Wm. Hawks, Chairman; H. Reinhart, Peirce Coy. |
